In the winding of an armature of the type which includes an armature shaft supporting a slotted core and a commutator having peripherally spaced hook-like tangs, it is desirable to use an automatic armature winding machine of the general type disclosed in George et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,172 which issued to the assignee of the present invention, and as also disclosed in the other U.S. Patents referred to in George et al patent. This general type of winding machine is commonly referred to as a double flyer-type armature winding machine and is frequently used to form an "alpha-type" connection between wire leads extending from each wound coil and its corresponding commutator tangs. "Alpha-type" lead connections are disclosed in British Pat. No. 942,926 and in above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,172.
When winding some armatures which have coils of extra fine wire, it is sometimes necessary to wrap the starting lead wire for the first coil more than once around its corresponding tang, for example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,208, to prevent the starting lead wire from unwrapping from the tang due to the tension within the wire extending from its corresponding flyer and before the first coil is wound. However, it has been found that the double or multiple wrapping of the starting lead wire for each coil around a commutator tang requires extra operations of the winding machine and increases the total time for winding each armature.